Czech President Miloš Zeman addressed a session of the European Parliament
in Strasbourg on Wednesday. In his first address to MEPs, Mr Zeman
expressed support for the earliest possible adoption of the euro by the
Czech Republic. He also criticized what he considers as the EU’s
excessive bureaucracy, transfers of MEPs between Brussels and Strasbourg,
the architecture of EU buildings and other issues. The Czech president
later met with the European Parliament speaker, Martin Schulz, as well as
Czech MEPs.

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The Czech goalkeeper Petr Čech has beaten in his former English Premier
League club Chelsea in his first competitive game for his new side Arsenal.
The 33-year-old helped the Gunners to a 1:0 win over Chelsea in the
Community Shield, a season curtain-raiser that pits the FA Cup winners
against the holders of the league title. Čech achieved great success in 11
years at Chelsea, including winning the Premier League four times, the FA
Cup four times and the Champions League in 2012.

The Czech president, Miloš Zeman, says nobody invited refugees to the
Czech Republic and if they don’t like it here they should leave. In an
interview with the tabloid website Blesk.cz, Mr. Zeman said the Czech
Republic could best help such people in their home state. In a reference to
recent criticism he received from the Czech prime minister, Bohulav
Sobotka, he said his comments might appear like an appeal to people’s
worst instincts; however, his position is the same as Hungary building a
fence to keep out Serbs or the USA doing likewise on its border with
Mexico, he said. The Czech president praised the police’s recent
increased efforts to uncover illegal migrants and said he had been told by
the chief of staff, Josef Bečvář,that the army was capable of sending
around 1,500 troops to guard the country’s borders.

Capacity at an asylum facility in Bělá pod Bezdězem, East Bohemia has
been increased to 700, a police spokesperson said on Sunday. Around 100
illegal migrants detained by the police in recent days are to be
transferred there today, increasing the current population to around 450.
During a visit on Friday Interior Minister Milan Chovanec and Police
President Tomáš Tuhý said officers from surrounding regions would be
used to boost security at Bělá pod Bezdězem. Rioting occurred there at
the end of last week and some families with children were moved to another
facility for safety reasons. A new asylum facility with a capacity of 1,200
should be built in the Czech Republic by the end of the year.

The Railway Infrastructure Administration is considering linking Prague’s
Main Train Station and the nearby Masarykovo nádraží station by means of
an underground corridor fitted with moving walkways of the type found in
airports. The project, which would cost around CZK 400 million, would ease
connections between the city’s two busiest railway stations. It is part
of a plan to build a new rail connection to Prague Airport and the town of
Kladno, a spokesperson for the Railway Infrastructure Administration said.

Five and a half thousand people attended this year’s Summer Film School
in the south Moravian town of Uherské Hradiště, which came to an end on
Saturday. Numbers were down on last year, which organisers attributed to
the fact that the event was celebrating 40 years of existence in 2014. The
annual festival offered screenings of over 200 films – including
retrospectives dedicated to Orson Welles, Polish cinema and the Berlin
School – as well as accompanying events such as exhibitions, concerts and
lectures.

Medical trade unions want to challenge the amount paid in health insurance
for those in the state insurance scheme at the Constitutional Court, Czech
Television reported. The unions want the government to increase the amount
it pays in insurance premiums for pensioners, children, the jobless and
mothers on maternity leave, which they say is too little in comparison with
the amount paid by those in employment. The head of the Czech Doctors’
Trade Union, Martin Engel, said he would discuss backing for the plan with
the chairman of the Senate, Milan Štěch; the support of at least 17
senators would be needed to force the Constitutional Court to consider the
matter.

Around 4,000 people are attending a free techno music festival on the site
of a former refugee camp in Červený Újezd in North Bohemia. The
organisers had informed the local authority that they were planning a
private event for 400 people. The local mayor said the techno festival had
led to traffic and noise problems, adding that participants were camping
and sleeping where they liked and not respecting private property. The
event, which has reportedly drawn people from around Europe, is due to end
on Monday.

One of Europe’s oldest theatre festivals, Jiráskův Hronov (Jirásek’s
Hronov), got underway in the Northeast Bohemian town on Saturday. The
event, which began in 1931 and has taken place every year since, is named
after the locally born Alois Jirásek, who is regarded as among the
greatest of Czech novelists. The programme of the week-long festival
includes a broad range of theatrical productions, including experimental,
student and puppet shows.

Temperatures in the Czech Republic will be above average in August,
according to a regular four-week forecast issued by the Czech
Hydro-Meteorological Institute on Saturday. The coming week will be the
warmest of the month, with temperatures reaching up to 30 degrees Celsius,
the forecasters said. There will also be relatively little rain in the next
seven days, which will further exacerbate the worst drought felt in the
country in over a decade.

Several rhesus macaque monkeys that escaped from their new enclosure at the
zoo in the Moravian town of Olomouc have returned. Seven of the monkeys
came back to the enclosure in the night but two more were reported to still
be outside its fence on Saturday; a zoo official said, however, that they
were sticking close to the enclosure. Evidently disturbed by the commotion,
the monkeys surprised zookeepers by managing a six-metre jump into a group
of trees during its official opening on Friday.